There is a campaign of disinformation that Speaker Nabih Berri has started in Lebanon about a ‘secret mandate’ given to him by the US (obviously, not specifying which administration is part of this self-serving tale) to elect a president that is pro-Western but who would not use tough tactics to apply the terms of the ceasefire.
Berri is confident his scam will work!
After all he was the “power broker” for much more important things than a mere election of a president. He “delivered”, working closely with Amos Hochstein and the Hezbollah at the time, the ‘maritime borders demarcation accord’ and the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire! Hence, he has earned the credit and the trust of the “Americans” (term to remain intentionally vague) for selecting and orchestrating the presidential election on January 9th, 2025.
His candidate is General George Khoury or some other intelligence officer who worked during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, who is staunchly anti-Aoun and anti-LF, and who still views Berri as the ‘patriarch’ of Lebanon’s domestic politics.
Berri is outdated, outmoded, and out-of-style. He does not recognize that the decimation of Hezbollah by Israel and the end of the Asad regime in Syria, have knocked off the position of the Shias as the “power brokers” of Lebanon. Or maybe he knows it and does not want to accept it, but to be in denial at such a level and to spread specious claims about a ‘secret mandate’ given to him by the U.S. is near delusional. That’s what is making this moment so dangerous and so critical.
The ‘others’ are in political coma (Maronite, Sunni and Druze politicians of all stripes and colors), while Berri, the ‘Last of the Mohicans’ is still playing -alone- in an empty field. How to break the logjam?
Something, or someone would have to deliver the message loud and clear: we have entered the Israeli Pax Era, and the rules of the game have changed for good.